[TheMentat]

Upon the recommendation of a buddy of mine, I decided to venture out to Kent, WA for the NHRA National series event.

Now, I should say that until this weekend, I thought I had borne witness to some pretty impressive racing machines, having been to several F1, Champcar, and ALMS events. Boy was I wrong...

The first time those Top Fuel cars simultaneously hit the throttle, I almost peed myself. Nothing could have prepared me for the sound of unleashing a combined 16,000 hp up close. It literally shakes you to the core.

It honestly sounds as if these guys have figured out how to power their cars from the fury of God himself! If you haven't seen one of these before, it should definitely be high up on your list.

Some more factoids:

- These cars compete in a 1/4 mile (0.4 km) race and complete it in less than 4.5 seconds at upwards of 330 mph (530 km/h)


- A Top Fuel dragster accelerates from 0 to 100 mph (160 km/h) in less than 0.8 second, subjecting the driver to a force about 5.7 times his weight, and almost 11 times quicker than it takes a production Porsche 911 Turbo to reach the same speed.

- At top engine speed, the exhaust gases escaping from the open headers produce about 800 pounds-force (3.6 kilonewtons) of downforce